COLUMBUS — Garit Witt’s dream of winning a state title is still alive after he powered through Alliance Marlington’s Ben Higgins in the Division II state championships quarterfinals in Columbus, 7-2.
Unlike in his opening match on Thursday, Witt came out aggressive and set the tone early.
“It felt good coming out aggressive,” Witt said. “I just went out, did what I had to do and won.”
His head coach, Bob Blackburn, was a little more verbose about what his saw from his 220-pounder in the quarters and would have liked to see more.
“I liked what I saw early. He hit a beautiful double-leg; his hip position was great,” Blackburn said. After the match I told him, ‘When you’ve got something flowing like that, you need to get one or two more to put the icing on the cake.’ That way, you don’t have to worry about something freaky happening.”
After opening up a bit of a lead in the opening period, Witt started pulled up off the accelerator a bit.
“When you get a three-point lead, you just want to hang on to it,” Blackburn said. “That can lead to problems, though. I’ll chew on him a little bit about it.
“It’s all about offense. If you take it out of gear, bad things can happen. You have to keep the pedal to the metal.”
Witt agrees that he needs to keep pushing for points.
“I probably should have been a little more aggressive in the second period, but I was doing what I had to do to win the match,” he said.
Witt will next wrestling in Friday night’s championship semifinals for the chance to wrestle in the state finals on Saturday night at the Schottenstein Center. Still, he knows there’s a lot of work left to do.
“I just have to keep going. I’m two wins away, but anything can happen in those matches at state,” he said. “I have to keep my head up and keep being aggressive with offense, offense, offense.”
Being aggressive is one thing, but Blackburn doesn’t want to see his senior wrestler be too aggressive.
“I don’t want him to be so aggressive that he opens up things,” Blackburn said, “but at the same time that was a beautiful double, and I would have loved to have seen one more.”
Witt will now face St. Paris Graham’s Johnny Shafer in the semifinals. Shafer, a freshman, enters the match with a 35-5 record on the season.
Witt and his coaches haven’t seen much of Shafer, other than his quarterfinal match on Friday morning.
“He likes to shoot the outside singles,” Witt said. “He really doesn’t seem to have much other than that, from what I saw in his quarterfinal match.”
The championship semifinals will begin at 6:30 p.m.
